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Syria cooperative on chem. disarmament: OPCW-UN mission

22 October 2013 18:21 (UTC +04:00)

“To date, the government of Syria has fully cooperated in supporting the work of the advance team and the OPCW-UN joint mission… There is continuous strong cooperation which the Secretary General and the Director General of the OPCW have also confirmed in recent statements,” said Sigfrid Kaag in a statement on Tuesday.

“I've been appointed to lead the joint mission for the OPCW and the UN to really ensure the destruction and the implementation of the destruction program as the Syrian government has agreed. We've had very good meetings with the Syrian government at most senior level,” the statement added.

Some 60 OPCW and UN experts and support staff are in Syria to implement a UN resolution on scrapping the Syrian chemical arsenal. The United Nations Security Council approved the resolution on September 27.

The team has until November 1 to inspect the chemical weapons arsenal declared by the Syrian government and supervise the destruction of the related facilities.

On September 14, Russia and the United States agreed on a deal according to which Syria would have its chemical weapons stockpiles eliminated and the US would in return not carry out planned strikes on the Middle Eastern country.

The agreement came after days of mounted war rhetoric against Syria by the US and some of its allies, which blamed Damascus for a fatal chemical attack on the outskirts of the Syrian capital on August 21.

Damascus has vehemently denied the accusations, saying the attack was carried out by the militants operating inside the country as a false-flag operation.

Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since 2011. According to reports, the Western powers and their regional allies -- especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey -- are supporting the militants operating inside Syria.

According to the United Nations, more than 100,000 people have been killed and millions displaced in the violence.